


Cavern snow

by Xan_xia (orphan_account)



Category: Undertale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-16 16:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Xan_xia
Summary: Deep underground, beneath a mountain a system of caverns run.In one particular cave snow rains from the top.In another its water.In another its lava.This is a backstory of a gameOf not-quite-so imaginary characters.And an experiment gone horribly wrong.





	1. A frozen skeleton.

Underground, in snowdin, a scientist recovered a skeleton that he had stumbled onto by chance. The poor thing was frozen solid and burned beneath the snow. They took the body back to the lab, where it was thawed and laid on a bed, waiting for something to happen.

After running a few tests on its magic, they discovered that it was yet another of countless victims to the recent magical epidemic, known as ‘falling down’. Now, in this day and age, skeletons were very rare, and nearly extinct, due to the war. However in this room there were two, or one and a half. The scientist that had saved the body, happened to be half skeleton and half ghoul, so he knew lots more than the average monster about this rare type of monster.

He also knew that, despite their susceptibility to falling down, they are also more compatible with DT and waking up from it too.

The scientist called his only assistant, who quickly acted upon his order to fetch the remaining DT. DT is a very special substance indeed, as it is one of the few forces that can cause spontaneous existence in monsters and can also be found in humans too. But monster DT and human DT are different. Human DT is toxic to most monsters, as it is much bore potent and is fundamentally selfishness. Monster DT is al lot weaker than human DT but is stemmed from selflessness instead. But due to the weakness of monster DT it cannot be isolated and contained without the monster in question be brutally murdered; human DT is stronger and can be removed from living and dead donors, as well as their souls itself.

The human DT was injected into the skeletons soul. The little heart strained and tried to reject it before giving up and fusing with the black substance. rather than white, the cracked soul was now light grey and rapidly began to heal. The tracks smoothed over, and the soul itself became it little larger. But the skeletons body could not keep up with its souls rejuvenation, and began to melt and fall apart; the bones lost their density , the teeth melted over each other and the ribcage began to collapse. In a panic, the scientist began to remove the DT, but the effect had already began to halt and the machine for extracting it began to boot up. Although there had been many physical implications, the skeleton was reasonably stable, and set for surviving falling down.

The scientist was satisfied with his work, and left the little skeleton to wake up naturally.

A few weeks had passed, and the magic within the skeleton began to stir. This was a sure sign of it waking up! The eager scientist sat on the empt bed next to the patients, and waited. Not ten minutes had passed before it began to move… first the eyes regained their light… next its spine and arms began to twitch. It did not get up, but instead, after surveying the room, asked a question.

**‘’ where am i?’’ **

‘’In a lab.’’ the scientist replied.

’’You fell down.’’

**‘’oh. did i?’ i didn’t notice…’’ **

The scientist could not tell whether it was sarcasm or a genuine question.

‘’So… anyway. Yes… So, I’m going to have to ask you a few questions.’’ ‘’Your name?’’

**‘’sans.’’**

‘’ A font…’’ the skeleton mused.

There had not been any fonts, as far as he was aware, for the past two hundred years. Fonts were a special type of boss monster for Humanlike and necrolytic monsters. The other two boss monsters were the dreemurrs, the weakest but longest lasting of the animalytic monsters, and the Signs, for elemelytic monsters. But, like the signs, they were exterminated. Only the dreemurrs survived, due to their docile and peaceful ways.

** ‘’yeah, like the font. and yours?’’**

‘’Oh! excuse my manners. I am Gaster, currently the royal scientist. i am a half-skeleton half-ghoul, but still a necrolytic monster like you.’’

**‘’huh. how awesome. i thought me and…’** The lights in sans’ eyes extinguished. and a look of fear crossed his face.

**‘’oh god, what about him!’’ **

Sans trued to sit up, but found that he couldn’t. Due to the melting of his bones the had become a lot weaker and could no longer hold their own weight.

‘Calm down!’ Gaster cried ‘Explain what the last thing you were doing. We may be able to sort out this issue, if we know what it is.’’

** ‘’My… brother. papyrus. i was carrying him, in the snow. he had fallen, and we were trying to take him to somewhere to get him treated.’’**

‘’Do you know the date?’’

**‘’15/xx/19xx.’’ **

There was a short silence. Gaster knew that the date that he had just named, before he fell down, was about 30 years ago. There was a high chance that Papyrus had dusted.

But, perhaps, like sans, could have been frozen by the snow. ‘’I shall go look for your brother. In snowdin. My assistant, alphys, will get you a wheelchair. We can see if you recognise anything.’’

Then gaster left and briskly walked round his house . He took the subway, which for some reason was faster than walking it above, and began to search in the bleak white cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a cave  
on a grave  
some pretty flowers grew  
every day  
they would sway  
far from the sky of blue  
beneath a tree  
a golden sea  
of flowers long forgotten  
once were loved  
now trodden and shoved  
now grey and brown and dead.
> 
> Well, lets see where this goes...


	2. A buried child.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> +1 skeletons.  
Level up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sans is bold  
PAPYRUS IS CAPITALS  
gaster  
alphys is italics

Outside the cold would tear at ones skin and bite at their fingers. Luckily, being part skeleton and ghoul meant had no nerves nor body to worry about. Gaster whisked about, searching for clues, scanning for magic, even a glimpse of living magic, but to no avail. Sans came out, with the aid of Alphys, and went towards Gaster, both were in a panicked state.

They could not find Papyrus. No body, no dust, no scrap of cloth could be found. To sans, this was a relief, somehow. It meant that there was a high chance that he had Woken. Or at least, found and moved, perhaps saved.

After a solid day of searching around, they gave up. He was not in snowdin.

Then alphas came up with a bright idea.

_“What, what if… we put up m-missing posters…you know, the ones they d-do with cats?”_

Sans smiled, not that he could frown anymore, and replied-

**“ok, let’s do that.”**

After a couple hours they had what they would call a disastrous design of a missing poster. Because there were no pictures, they tried to draw one, but mainly just emphasised the word‘skeleton’.

Then they went to every house, asking if they had seen that skeleton.

They all said no.

But house 42;

**‘have you seen this skeleton?’**

‘no, dears. not a skeleton like that. when did you lose them?’

‘a while back.’

‘well, a couple of years ago I came across a skeleton in the snow… but it had no signs of life and wasn't moving, probably a human skeleton that was left behind, I say. I buried it in the backyard. You can see the grave if you want?’

Gaster and sans exhibited a brief moment of pure panic.

‘ma’am…’** ’thats..’** ’buried?’ **‘dead-’** _’oh god!’_

Without permission, Gaster shot though the house, and slightly slower, Alphys wheeled sans through, albeit still without permission.

They found a pretty black and cyan stone on top of an area of dirt, probably from waterfall, which marked the grave for the not-so-dead skeleton. Sans lifted up the loose dirt , one eye glowing, and Gaster removed the little skeleton gently. The bones were soft yet brittle, just picking it up resulted on flakes of ash-like powder to rain from every bone.

Sans, desperate to save his younger sibling, strained himself to teleport back to the part of the lab he woke up in. Ina few seconds, he managed to grasp the location and moved them all back to where the beds were. Sans fell asleep from sheer exhaustion immediately, and Gaster and Alphys wasted not a second of the precious time sans had bought. They laid the young papyrus down onto a bed, and began to teach for some sort of healing item, or food. They had no more DT, so that was not an option. After managing to heal him with some lying around instant noodles, they surveyed his magic to determine his status. To their shock, they found that he actually had naturally woken, and had been conscious for many months. But he lack of magical nourishment had led him into a critical state, where if unmoved, he would have dusted in a few weeks. If he has been removed by hand, he may have dusted instantly, the trauma being too much for his body to handle.

Sans had woken.

**“is he ok?”**

“Yes. Should be up and back with the living within a day!”

**“oh. thank god.”**

**“also… thanks for helping me out, i probably would never have seen him again without you or alphys”**

Although gaster didn’t show much emotion, he was quite happy with this little sentence of gratitude. It was one of the reasons he became a scientist. To help people.

**“and, i couldn’t help but notice, the year is 20xx. has it really been that long, or are you trying to trick me, heh.”**

**“not that i could see you doing that.”**

Gaster looked at sans, and sighed

“I sorry, but you are quite a bit older than when you fell. But your magical age hasn’t gotten any higher, so it doesn’t really make a difference. What was your magical age before, by the way?”

**“wow, ok. i think it was around 15.”**

“Well, congratulations. you are now 17, according to the survey.”

Magical age (MA) is different to actual age (AA). In monsters, people use their magical age, before their actual age. MA is how far magic in a persons body has developed, and normally it caps off at 100, and then they begin to die of old age. With boss monsters, the average is 200. However, this has next to nothing to do with AA. To get to 100 MA could take thousands of years, however it varies dramatically from monster to monster. Generally how fast you age in MA depends on effort put into utilising magic, your ability and how much you actually use it. Having a higher MA, means you are stronger, but also closer to magic degeneration, or death. Technically you could live forever if you never used magic, but even by having a physical form most monsters use magic, so it is impossible to stop ageing altogether.

“How old was your brother?”

**“he was seven, at the time, i think.”**

“Hmm. he actually aged a lot then. Right now, he is 16, only a year below you.”

**“wait, seriously? i gotta practice my magic…”**

Papyrus began to stir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look up!  
Cried the birds.  
Look up at the sky so blue!  
But down here  
In darkness severe  
There is no sky  
No sapphire blue  
The birds  
Their words  
They are not true.  
The sky exists no more.
> 
> A papyrus has been obtained!  
What next...


End file.
